The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 70mm drama about a battle of wills between a ravaged war veteran and the cult leader who offers him a place at his right hand, dominated the 2012 awards of the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFC).
Anderson’s film took Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, with co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman named the year’s Best Supporting Actor. Anderson has now won Best Picture twice (previous was Magnolia 1999) and Best Director three times (previous was Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love 2002). He also shared the Best Screenplay prize with Being John Malkovich author Charlie Kaufman (1999).
The awards were voted by the TFCA at a Dec. 16 meeting. The membership also chose the three finalists for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award: Bestiaire, directed by Denis Côté; Goon, directed by Michael Dowse, and Stories We Tell, directed by Sarah Polley.
The 2012 TFCA Awards will be presented at a gala dinner at Toronto’s Carlu on January 8, 2013, hosted by Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). There the TFCA will also reveal the winner of the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, which this year carries a record-setting $100,000 cash prize, now the richest arts award in the country. The runners-up will each receive $5,000. Don McKellar will present the award.
Canadian filmmakers were also honoured in the TFCA’s other awards, with Stories We Tell winning the Allan King Documentary Award and Panos Cosmatos sharing the Best First Feature prize for Beyond the Black Rainbow with Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.
And the TFCA named Michael Haneke’s Amour the year’s Best Foreign-Language Film. Haneke’s drama, starring Jean-Louis Trintingnant and Emmanuelle Riva as an elderly couple deteriorating in their Paris apartment, won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
At the Jan. 8 gala, the TFCA will also present the Manulife Financial Student Film Award, which carries a $5,000 cash prize. It will be presented to a short film that the critics select from student entries submitted by film programs at Humber College, Ryerson University, Sheridan College and York University. Also at the gala, the TFCA will also announce the Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, sponsored by Deluxe, which will present a cheque for $5,000 and provide an equivalent value in post-production services.
Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up; as well, as bon chance to three finalists for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award! Some of the films are still playing; check local listings for a theatre near you.
*Information courtesy of VKPR.
